NOT EMANCIPATORS

 No matter what the media and other government mouthpieces want you to think, the western troops are not and have never been agents of freedom for anyone . If anything, they and the taliban are two sides of the same stinking coin. At no time in history has it been otherwise.

DEBACLE IN AFGHANISTAN: A STEP TOWARD WORLD WAR

FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 2021 AT 1:29PM

As the bigtime terrorists of U.S. imperialism suffer another humiliating defeat and leave Afghanistan to the small-time terrorists of the Taliban, the world is witnessing in real time the waning of a once-dominant empire. Thanks to flawed intelligence, decades of failed strategies, and one blunder after the next by their latest incompetent president, the U.S. bosses are currently unable to guarantee safe passage for the evacuation of their own citizens, let alone the translators and interpreters and women leaders whose lives are now in jeopardy. Wrenching photographs and reports are flooding out from Kabul airport: men plunging from departing U.S. military planes; at least seven people—including a two-year-old girl—trampled to death by a panicked crowd; desperate parents handing their babies over barbed wire fences to U.S. soldiers inside the perimeter. The profit system’s  contempt for human life is on full display.
As workers attempt to escape the chaos wrought by the U.S. capitalist rulers and their corrupt local stooges, we’re seeing a horrific preview of what awaits the international working class: open fascism and global war. But these images also lay bare the key to our future. Workers cannot leave our destiny in the hands of the capitalists, big or small. We must organize as a class to face this dangerous period head-on. We must redouble our commitment to organize a communist revolution—and to build a new communist society, run by and for the workers of the world.
The abrupt withdrawal of troops after the longest war in U.S. history reflects the collapse of the liberal world order and a worldwide crisis of capitalism. As a divided U.S. ruling class belatedly pivots to prepare for military conflict with chief inter-imperialist rivalry China and possibly Russia as well, it has squandered critical ground and influence in Central Asia. It’s lost the confidence of longtime allies in Europe, who are now charting their own course. But make no mistake: A wounded empire is no less dangerous.  As the world’s bosses prepare to sacrifice workers’ lives in the next big redistribution of global resources and markets, our class has only one way out: communism.
Weakness and collapse
On August 16, President Joe Biden openly acknowledged why the U.S. needed to withdraw: “Our Chinese and Russian competitors would love for the United States to continue to invest billions of dollars in resources and attention to stabilize Afghanistan indefinitely” (La Jornada, 8/17). Weakened by a split with the isolationist, “America First” bosses who’ve hijacked the Republican Party, the liberal U.S. ruling class must reserve their forces for potential flashpoints like Taiwan and the South China Sea.
Republicans and Democrats are equally responsible for the U.S. fiasco in Afghanistan. It was no surprise that Bomber-in-Chief Barack Obama backed the deal that Donald Trump initiated with the Taliban and that Biden ultimately implemented. Relying on NATO intelligence, the imperialists under Trump proposed an 18-month peace process and a transitional coalition government that would include exiled ex-president Ashraf Ghani. But as Afghan forces collapsed without a fight, the plan never had a chance. As the date of the U.S. military exit neared, Afghan National Army units disintegrated. Thousands of underpaid soldiers deserted or joined a budding insurgency. In just three days the Taliban captured five provincial capitals. Finding no resistance, they kept on going until they reached Kabul. All of the Afghan Army’s modern weapons and tanks and helicopters could not overcome their troops’ lack of commitment (La Jornada, 8/19).
Over 20 years and the last four U.S. administrations, this futile war directly took the lives of more than 241,000 people, including more than 70,000 civilians in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan (Costs of War project, Brown University). Along with the similarly disastrous Iraq War, it will wind up costing the U.S. more than $2 trillion—plus another $6.5 trillion in debt payments (abcnews.go.com, 8/14). These obligations will weigh heavily on the working class.
U.S. rivals fill the vacuum
The U.S. loss of Afghanistan creates a void that rival imperialists are eager to fill. Both the Chinese and Russian bosses announced that they would seek agreements with the Taliban and keep their embassies functioning normally amid the crisis, giving Taliban leaders international legitimacy. Central Asia is the “belt” of the Chinese rulers’ Belt and Road Initiative.  One prime target for Chinese investment in Afghanistan, according to Forbes Magazine, is the mining of 1.4 million tons of “rare earth elements,” which are crucial for renewable energy technology: “America needs rare earths, and China controls 90 percent of processing capacity” (8/17).
Russia, which endured its own devastating retreat from Afghanistan in 1989, may benefit most of all. “For Moscow,” observed the New York Times, “the chaotic American withdrawal...was a propaganda victory on a global scale....Russia's security presence [in Central Asia] is predominant” (8/19).
As the U.S. ruling class grows more vulnerable and isolated, their new, stripped-down plan for Afghanistan is to maintain an espionage network to destabilize the border with China. While leaving Afghanistan is a step backward for the U.S. bosses in terms of their global influence and stature, it also represents a step forward in their strategic plan for imperialist war and the fascism they will need to force the working class to fight for them. This is the danger workers must recognize and organize into a fight to smash capitalism.
From one exploiter to the next
When the U.S. bosses’ propaganda mouthpieces recount the history of the Afghanistan invasion, they cite the attacks of 9/11 and the need to wipe out terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. They neglect to mention the U.S.-backed TAPI pipeline that was designed to transport natural gas through Afghanistan to India and Pakistan without going through U.S. enemies Russia or Iran.
Despite their promises to bring “democracy” to Afghanistan, the U.S. bosses installed a narco-government that skimmed tens of billions of dollars a year by supplying opium and heroin to the West (El País, 11/19/09). Opium production during the invasion multiplied by more than 40 times, effectively turning the country into a drug lab that spawned deadly opioid addictions throughout the world (actuality.rt.com, 8/19).
The reformist illusion that a U.S. invasion would end terrorism and improve life for masses of workers in Afghanistan has disintegrated. Twenty years of occupation left nearly half the population under the poverty line (rebelion.org, 8/17) and generated 5.5 million refugees (La Jornada, 8/19). Tens of thousands more are now trying to flee the country. By abandoning political opponents of the Taliban and others who served the occupation, the U.S. has earned the hostility of the working class in Afghanistan and the entire world.
The capitalist media drama over an anticipated loss of "human rights" under the Taliban obscures the boundless hypocrisy of the U.S. ruling class. Sexism and racism are the ideological pillars that sustain the rulers’ system. Under capitalism, millions of women workers are super-exploited, raped, and murdered each day around the world.
The last 20 years of indiscriminate bombings and dronings, which claimed the lives of  countless women and children, is a testament to the sexist, traumatizing force that is the U.S military for millions of Afghan women.
But the Taliban are also enemies of the workers. They oppress the working class, particularly women. They’re essentially a rival opium cartel that will negotiate with any imperialist that promises to enrich them. The Taliban use religion to cloak their fascist control and to guarantee a disciplined working class, ready for exploitation by Chinese and Russian bosses (La Jornada, 8/23).
The working class around the world needs to rebuild the communist movement to confront and defeat capitalism. Only communism can guide the working class in building a new society without capitalists, exploitation, or imperialist war. That is the goal of Progressive Labor Party. Join us

WELL DESERVED

 I know most of those people protesting that smarmy little fuck trudeau are reactionary assholes, but honestly, the privileged fuckface got everything he deserved. 

Of course he answered in typical politician's bullshit . Nothing concrete , just airy meaningless rhetoric. "This is not who we are "? Seriously ???? Then where the fuck is this happening , you fucking moron. He is the stereotype of a handshaking, fake smiling, baby kissing politician .

Fuck him .

Trudeau campaign rally cancelled over security concerns amid protests

Fri., August 27, 2021, 3:13 p.m.

Protesters wait for Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau to arrive at a campaign event in Bolton, Ont., on Friday that was later cancelled over security concerns. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press - image credit)

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau is vowing to meet "anger with compassion" after a campaign rally was cancelled amid protests.

Trudeau was expected to address supporters Friday evening in Bolton, Ont., but the event was cancelled over security concerns.

Dozens of angry protesters, who outnumbered Liberal supporters, gathered near the Bolton rally and began chanting obscenities before Trudeau could make his address.

After a nearly two-hour delay, a man took to the loud speaker to announce that the event was cancelled, to which the crowd reacted with more shouting.

The OPP was called in to escort the campaign bus away from the site.

WATCH: Trudeau's campaign rally in Bolton, Ont., cancelled amid protests

Trudeau spoke to reporters later Friday evening at a park in nearby Brampton. He said he recognized that the pandemic has been hard on everyone, including those who protested at his event.

"We all had a difficult year. Those folks out protesting, they had a difficult year too, and I know and I hear the anger, the frustration, perhaps the fear," he said.

"I know we have to work even harder to be there for each other, to support each other. We need to meet that anger with compassion."

Trudeau said the event was cancelled because they couldn't ensure people's safety at the event.

He added that he has never seen this level of anger or intensity on a campaign trail, including his time as a kid when campaigning with his father, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau.

"I think this is something that Canadians, all of us, need to reflect on, because it's not who we are," he said.

WATCH: 'We could not guarantee the safety of the people in attendance,' Trudeau on cancelling campaign rally

The rally's cancellation comes amid heightened tensions on the campaign for both Trudeau and other leaders.

Trudeau was met by anti-vaccine protests in Surrey, B.C., on Wednesday afternoon, some shouting at him that they were refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh had a racist remark directed at him while campaigning on Wednesday in Windsor, Ont.

During Singh's campaign event in a park, a man shouted "go back home" from a passing vehicle. Singh, who was born in Scarborough, Ont., and raised in Windsor, continued his speech undeterred.

On Friday alone, Trudeau was faced with two crowds of angry protesters.

Demonstrators gathered first during an earlier Liberal campaign stop in Nobleton, Ont. on Friday afternoon.

The Nobleton stop was meant to be a photo-op at a local bakery but was quickly disrupted by the crowd, who appeared to be protesting against pandemic policies.

Before the Liberal campaign bus arrived at the location, the demonstrators had gathered outside, holding signs reading things such as "Trudeau Treason."

Once the bus pulled up, the crowd starting booing and shouting, which only intensified after the Liberal leader stepped off the bus.

WATCH: Protesters shout at Trudeau during campaign stops

As Trudeau made his way toward the entrance of the bakery, protesters followed him and his RCMP security contingent, continuing to shout and give him the middle finger.

Once inside, Trudeau toured the bakery and spoke with the owners and some employees before making his way around a seated area to speak to a few patrons.

A few protesters entered the bakery unmasked and began to follow Trudeau.

One woman shouted "why are you threatening segregation?" presumably in reference to the Liberal's promise of a billion-dollar fund to help provinces create their own vaccine passports, while another woman yelled "leave the kids alone!"

As Trudeau left the bakery to return to his campaign bus, demonstrators lined his path and continued to shout and gesture at him.

Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole tweeted a message on Friday night after his party condemned the use of language and obscene gestures at Trudeau's campaign stops.

"Canada is a country where people can express their political views, but we must do so peacefully and orderly," O'Toole wrote. "No one deserves to be subjected to harassment and obscenities."

The NDP's Singh also posted a message on Twitter, saying everyone "deserves to be safe on the campaign trail."

"I am very sorry to hear this happened tonight to Mr. Trudeau and the Liberal team and I hope that everyone is ok," Singh wrote.

Bulletproof vest worn during 2019 campaign

Trudeau wore a bulletproof vest at a rally in Mississauga, Ont., during the 2019 campaign.

During that rally, uniformed tactical officers wearing heavy backpacks surrounded the Liberal leader as he addressed the crowd. His wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, was initially supposed to introduce him but did not appear on stage.

Trudeau delivered the speech at the 2019 rally without incident, then shook hands with numerous supporters lining the stage and in the crowd as he left the venue.

At the time, government sources confirmed an increase in online posts condoning violence during the campaign.

WHAT AN ASSHOLE

 Well well well, what a goddamned surprise.

Who'd have thought that the ceo of pfizer would say that there will be a new vaccine resistant virus , and that his fucking company could come up with a new shot to combat it ? What a transparent asshole . Too bad most people are driven by fear and won't see through this obvious fucking bullshit.

Fuck him.

Pfizer CEO says a vaccine-resistant coronavirus variant is 'likely' to emerge

Taiyler Simone Mitchell

Tue., August 24, 2021, 1:53 p.m.

• Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told Fox it was likely a vaccine-resistant variant would emerge. 

• Bourla said Pfizer could make a shot tailor-made for such a variant within 95 days of its discovery.

• The CDC director said the virus could be "a few mutations" away from evolving to evade vaccines.

• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told Fox News on Tuesday that he believed it was "likely" a vaccine-resistant coronavirus variant would eventually emerge. 

"Every time that a variant appears in the world, our scientists are getting their hands around it," Bourla said. "And they are researching to see if this variant can escape the protection of our vaccine.

"We haven't identified any yet, but we believe that it is likely that one day, one of them will emerge."

Bourla added that Pfizer could produce new versions of its vaccine to combat a variant within three months of its discovery.

"We have built a process that within 95 days from the day that we identify a variant as a variant of concern, we will be able to have a vaccine tailor-made against this variant," Bourla said.

This is not the first time this concern of vaccine evasion has been brought up, but experts' opinions are split.

"These vaccines operate really well in protecting us from severe disease and death, but the big concern is that the next variant that might emerge - just a few mutations, potentially, away - could potentially evade our vaccines," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said in a July 27 press briefing.

The UK government's advisory panel, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, said higher rates of virus circulation and transmission were creating "more opportunities for new variants to emerge."

The CDC estimated 93% of US states were at a "high level of community transmission" as of Monday. New daily cases have more than quadrupled in the past month.

But Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, told the Telegraph that the possibility of a vaccine-resistant strain was unlikely.

"It would require so many mutations in the spike protein that this virus wouldn't 'work' anymore," Rasmussen said.

Watch the clip of Bourla here:

-The Recount (@therecount) August 24, 2021

Read the original article on Insider

IT'S NOT OVER

 Western troops may be leaving Aghanistan, but the chaos and starvation the imperialists are sowing will continue, and possibly get even worse.

There is no end to the lies and manipulation that the amerikkkan government won't stoop to, including idiot biden's regime.

U.S. plans – sanctions and famine for Afghanistan

By Sara Flounders posted on August 24, 2021

Aug. 23 — U.S. politicians and journalists are all feigning deep concern about leaving behind tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for them. Meanwhile, U.S. financial institutions are busy planning a horrendous crisis for all Afghans, including their loyal collaborators.

Internally displaced people in Afghanistan at the Haji camp in Kandahar, August 2021.

The cynical decision to seize all of Afghanistan’s assets is reported in the back pages of the business and financial news. The media calculates the effects of these plans as “catastrophic.” Plunging currency, hyperinflation and soaring food prices are the immediate predicted effects. An orchestrated famine on a devastating level is in the planning stages.

According to the Aug. 14 Voice of America: “Afghan people are facing both an artificial and natural disaster, rendering them unable to feed their families. The situation has all the hallmarks of a humanitarian catastrophe.” 

U.S. imperialism has tried many ruthless tactics to sustain a position of military dominance in Central Asia. Afghanistan has borders with China, Iran and the former Soviet Republics bordering Russia. Imperialist strategists have considered Afghanistan a key piece in the “Great Game” among competing powers for over 150 years.

At the height of the most recent imperialist intervention, in 2010 the U.S. and dozens of NATO and “partner” compliant countries deployed more than 130,000 troops on 400 military bases, forward operating bases and combat outposts around Afghanistan and built 300 bases for Afghan puppet troops. (CBS News, Feb. 10, 2010)

Over the last 20 years, U.S. involvement in Afghanistan has generated images of brutalized captives, secret prisons, sexual violence, enforced disappearances and random killings. There have been hundreds of drone strikes on homes, weddings and village gatherings.

But none of these ruthless tactics, amid the all-pervasive rot of corruption, succeeded in maintaining U.S. domination. Each tactic, however, created greater misery, poverty and resistance. 

The disarray is on display at Kabul Airport for the whole world to view. But U.S. corporate and banking power still has formidable power in their hands. 

The next U.S. weapon is intentional starvation. 

 90% live below poverty level

Even Afghan President Mohammed Ashraf Ghani, a totally corrupt politician who fled Afghanistan in a plane so stuffed with cash that skids of cash were left sitting on the tarmac, warned last year that 90% of Afghans already live below the government-determined poverty level of $2 a day.  (TOLOnews, July 20, 2020) 

New York Times reporter Alan Rappeport, in one of several articles in the business section on the coming U.S. squeeze, wrote: “The United States and the international community are already shutting the flow of money, leaving Afghanistan in the stranglehold of sanctions that were designed to cut the Taliban off from the global financial system. Analysts say the looming shock threatens to amplify a humanitarian crisis in a country that has already endured years of war.” 

Rappeport quotes Justin Sandefur, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, who said of cutting access to all funds, “In the short term, it’s potentially catastrophic . . . could inflict real pain on normal people.” (NY Times, July 21)

Treasury Department officials confidently assert that the Biden administration is working to prevent the Taliban from getting any of Afghanistan’s money. 

The squeeze

The U.S. has blocked access to Afghanistan’s nearly $9.5 billion in the Afghan’s Central Bank’s assets. The money is held in the New York Federal Reserve and other U.S.-based financial institutions. (Al-Jazeera, Aug. 18)

The International Monetary Fund suspended plans to distribute more than $460 million in emergency reserves to the country. The IMF is funded with contributions by its 190 member nations; however, the United States is the largest shareholder and has always controlled the institution since it was established in 1944. 

The $1.3 billion held in funds in euros and British pounds and by the Swiss-based Bank for International Settlements are also frozen. Funds from the agreement in November 2020 among six countries to send $12 billion over four years for emergency relief to Afghanistan are frozen. Germany has frozen its funds. All the imperialist countries are participating in the financial squeeze.

Even Afghanistan’s share of a $650 billion allocation of currency reserves known as Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), to help developing countries cope with the coronavirus pandemic, is frozen.

The U.S. government doesn’t need any fresh authority to freeze Afghan monetary reserves. Financial sanctions have been in place since the aftermath of the 9/11 attack. 

A ‘Crime Against Humanity’

The U.S. is now leveraging its last measure of control to inflict maximum damage. This is not a by-product of the confusion of war. This is an enforced and calculated crime against humanity. Depriving civilians of access to food or targeting civilians in a systematic policy that causes suffering and death is defined in international law as a Crime Against Humanity. 

Rappeport described the impact of other unilateral economic sanctions. “There is precedent for the IMF to block countries from their currency reserves. Earlier this year, the fund said that Venezuela would not have access to the $5 billion of SDRs that it would have received, because of a dispute over the Maduro government’s legitimacy.” (NY Times, Aug. 21)

Venezuela was a country that, before the U.S.-imposed economic sanctions, provided for its population with generous food subsidies, free medical care, free education for the whole population and millions of subsidized housing units. Now U.S. sanctions are strangling Venezuela. 

Afghanistan is totally dependent on shipments of U.S. dollars every few weeks. Its imports are about five times greater than its exports. Now all the money is blocked. Ajmal Ahmady, former acting governor of the Afghan National Bank, fled the country and tweeted safely from afar: “We can say the accessible funds to the Taliban are perhaps 0.1-0.2% of Afghanistan’s total international reserves. Not much.”

Banker Ahmady has tweeted: “If the Taliban can’t gain access to the central bank’s reserves, this would help start a cycle in which the national currency will depreciate, and inflation will rise rapidly and worsen poverty. That’s going to hurt people’s living standards. Now Afghanistan can only get access to its own money by negotiating with the U.S.” 

Seizing the central bank’s money and cutting all international aid, in a poor country where three-quarters of public spending is financed by grants, gives Washington powerful leverage. U.S. strategists understand the impact of freezing funds and can calibrate this tactic to inflict maximum pain. 

The immediate food insecurity was made much worse by both drought and floods in the past three years. Climate crisis had already led to big price spikes for staples like wheat flour, rice and cooking oil.

U.N. officials now warn of dire food shortages. The World Food Program is warning of a dramatic rise in the number of hungry people in Afghanistan.

This is the very real threat that stands behind President Joe Biden’s sudden announcement on Aug. 22, a week after the government collapse, that Washington was considering extending evacuation efforts beyond his Aug. 31 deadline to leave Afghanistan.

Biden said that about 28,000 U.S. citizens, allies and Afghans have been transported out since the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul Aug. 15. As many as 80,000 Americans and Afghans who worked for the U.S. are still scheduled to be evacuated. This is the excuse for an extended stay while new, even more onerous concessions are demanded. 

This is an urgent moment to demand: U.S. out of Afghanistan — totally out, and end the U.S.-imposed sanctions. Let Afghanistan Live!

NONSENSE

 The substanceless nonsense from Dr. Henry continues, from originally saying she wouldn't mandate mask-wearing, to saying that she "doesn't have time for those who won't wear masks" , to predicting a "post-pandemic world by the summer " , which is now , and we're back to masks again.

Of course the blame is on the unvaccinated , or 10-20% of the population . Everyone needs a scapegoat, after all.

I'm sure people like to gloss over the fact that she said it was okay to mix and match vaccine brands , while it looks the rest of the world disagrees. And the people of this province are begging for more lockdowns and restrictions , even though it hasn't stopped shit from happening elsewhere.

According to the official numbers, the amount of people in b.c. who have had covid is 1.48 million, with deaths being 26,848 . That's 1.8% fatality, by the government's own inflated stats. And if you take the entire population of b.c. into account ( 5.07 million ) , that's 0.52% who have died from covid. That doesn't seem like people dying in overcrowded hospitals to me. So what are the actual odds of getting the virus ?

I guess we could play with numbers all day, but it seems like everything's hysterically over the top.

Good day to you.

THEY'LL TELL YOU ANYTHING

 The lying imperialists will tell you anything that they think you want to hear . It doesn't matter what the truth is . They will give you news that you think you believe in , and if it doesn't get swallowed up by the public, they will hire someone to make it more palatable.

Read this article from 2001:

 

Beware the siren song: Women’s liberation and Afghanistan

By Minnie Bruce Pratt posted on August 20, 2021

This article originally appeared in Workers World, Dec. 6, 2001.

Women village defense forces carry AK-47s during a ceremony in Kabul to mark the 10th anniversary of the communist revolution in Afghanistan, April 26, 1988.

As U.S. bombing and troop presence has intensified in Afghanistan, the mainstream media have issued a barrage of articles, photographs, opinion pieces and interviews claiming this war will liberate Afghan women. They present it as a “collateral benefit” that the war will reverse the Taliban’s cruel oppression of women and even give women a chance to get political rights under a new government.

Government officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell have addressed the same subject in news conferences, briefings and interviews. 

 Most dramatically, “First Lady” Laura Bush was in front of the microphone on Nov. 17, instead of her husband, for the president’s usual Saturday radio address, so she could testify about the oppression of Afghan women under the Taliban. 

This media blitz has been orchestrated through the governmental Coalition Information Center, set up to counter any criticism of the U.S. war. The 

campaign is coordinated by spin-doctors like public relations industry legend Charlotte Beers, former chair of giant ad agency J. Walter Thompson. Four of the key “gatekeepers” of this campaign are women, including chief Pentagon spokesperson Victoria Clarke and Mary Matlin, chief political adviser to Vice President Cheney. 

Matlin said of these women’s commitment to advocating for the war: “I think we probably bring — and I don’t mean this to sound sexist — but we probably have more of a subconscious outrage at these issues . . . This is something that crosses my mind every day: A third of these women in pre-Taliban days were doctors, lawyers and teachers. You can’t help but be outraged.” (New York Times, Nov. 11, 2001)      

The real outrage    

Which pre-Taliban days is she talking about? The outrage is ours if we look at the real history of women’s liberation in Afghanistan. Yes, terrible things have been done to women under the Taliban rule. But how did the Taliban come into existence? And what was the role of the United States?    

In 1978 a revolution created a secular government in Afghanistan that tried to liberate the workers and peasants from the grip of feudal landlords. The secular government was based on a young socialist movement, the Progressive Democratic Party of Afghanistan. The revolutionaries cancelled mortgage debts of laborers and tenants; these debts had been inherited over generations so that feudal warlords held land workers as virtual serfs. And the new government promoted the welfare and liberation of women.   

The revolutionary government immediately moved to improve the terrible conditions women had endured. It set up literacy programs especially for women, whose illiteracy rate was 96%. It trained more teachers and published textbooks in local languages. It organized brigades of women to go into the countryside to provide medical services and by 1985 had increased hospital beds by 80%. 

Decrees were issued, both abolishing the bride-price, so women could be free to choose their marriages, and prohibiting the punishment of women for losing their virginity before marriage. Women were able to train and then work as doctors, teachers and lawyers.  

Did the U.S. government know of these things? These facts about the Afghan revolution can be found in a book published by the U.S. Department of the Army entitled, “Afghanistan — a Country Study for 1986.”      

Yet it was this enlightened government that U.S. President Jimmy Carter set out to overthrow by organizing a massive counterrevolutionary army of religious fundamentalists in 1979. A CIA-orchestrated war forced the Afghan government to call for Soviet military assistance. What followed was a bitter conflict that lasted more than a decade and eventually overthrew the progressive regime. More years of war followed, as the Taliban, the Northern Alliance and other factions — all of which drew their power from the feudal landlord class — fought for supremacy. (Workers World, Oct. 10, 1996)

The CIA had facilitated the formation of Osama bin Laden’s organization in the 1980s to attack the progressive government in Afghanistan. As U.S. vice president, George Bush Sr. oversaw the operation. Subsequently, bin Laden’s troops murdered teachers, doctors and nurses, disfigured women who took off the veil, and they shot down civilian airliners with U.S.-supplied Stinger missiles. (Workers World, Oct. 4, 1996)     

What the U.S. does care about   

Now Bush and the generals claim to care about the rights of women living in the counterrevolution they financed and engineered. But the U.S. has consistently disregarded the plight and status of women in Afghanistan.     

The White House and Pentagon knew the reactionary position of the U.S.-financed and trained fundamentalist groups toward women. But this was immaterial to the goal of the U.S. government to support the interests of oil corporations that have been trying to get a pipeline through Afghanistan for 10 years.      

In a May 26, 1997, New York Times article, John F. Burns wrote: “While deploring the Taliban’s policies on women and the adoption of a penal code that provides for the amputation of thieves’ hands and the stoning to death of adulterers, the United States has sometimes acted as though a Taliban government might serve its interests. 

“The Clinton administration has taken the view that a Taliban victory would end a war that has killed 1.5 million Afghans, would act as a counterweight to Iran, whose Shiite Muslim leadership is fiercely opposed to the Sunni Muslims of the Taliban, and would offer the possibility of new trade routes that could weaken Russian and Iranian influence in the region.      

“For example, a proposal by the Unocal Corporation of California for a $2.5 billion pipeline that would link the gas fields of Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan has attracted strong support in Washington, though human rights groups are likely to object to the plan. . . . The Afghan project, strongly endorsed by the Taliban, is part of a broader concept under which the vast mineral resources of the former Soviet republics would be moved to markets along routes that would offer these countries a new autonomy from Moscow.”   

In May 1998, Time magazine reported the CIA had “set up a secret task force to monitor the region’s politics and gauge its wealth. Covert CIA officers, some of them well-trained petroleum engineers, had traveled through southern Russia and the Caspian region to sniff out potential oil reserves. When the policymakers heard the agency’s report, [Secretary of State Madeleine] Albright concluded that ‘working to mold the area’s future was one of the most exciting things we can do.’”

‘Free to beg’

As U.S. Marines dig in and direct air attacks near Kandahar, the U.S. continues to try to mold the future of Afghanistan, Central Asia and the Middle East — but not out of concern for the future of women. On the first day of this war, U.S. bombs struck a Kabul hospital and killed 13 women in a gynecological hospital.      

After weeks of bombing, U.S. newspapers enthuse that Afghan women “are uncovering their faces, looking for jobs, walking happily with female friends on the street.”     

Yet, at the same time, Bush administration officials admit that they will not publicly insist women be included in talks about a post-Taliban coalition government. In fact, in the Bonn meeting scheduled by the U.S. and allies to arrange Afghanistan’s future, only three token women have been included: the widow of a mujahedeen commander killed fighting against the former secular socialist government and two backers of the long-deposed king. (New York Times, Nov. 26, 2001)

As the women of Afghanistan emerge into the horrifying destruction and chaos unleashed by U.S. bombing, what kind of freedom and what kind of rights will be theirs? A New York Times article, entitled “Behind the Burka,” focused on a 56-year-old woman with no schooling, eight children and a dead husband. (Nov. 19, 2001)    

The last line of the article sums up her “liberated” future under imperialist subjugation: “Now, at last, she is free to beg.”      

Stop the war!    

That is a future this Afghan woman shares with many women in the United States — women on welfare who soon will be “free to beg” under the so-called Welfare Reform Act. 

Passed during the Clinton administration, it essentially eliminated Aid to Families with Dependent Children and set up a strict limit on the time length of benefits. The cut-off date of Dec. 1 is now fast approaching for thousands of already impoverished women. Some will be evicted in the middle of freezing winter. Others will be forced to place their children in foster care. Still others will be denied the most basic health care and reproductive services for themselves and their children. 

And the astronomical economic cost of the U.S. war on Afghanistan will take an even greater toll on the poor in this country — especially women and children. 

The war against Afghanistan has never been about the liberation of women, not even as a “collateral benefit.” The war is about imperialist domination for capitalist profit. Opposition to this war, and this economic system, is the only thing that will help bring about the full liberation of women.     

Minnie Bruce Pratt is an anti-racist activist, lesbian author and longtime leader in the struggle for women’s liberation.

SHALLOW

 No one was surprised that the taliban were ready to take over as soon as the yankees started to admit defeat and withdraw their occupying troops, but many were amazed at how quickly everything began to unravel. 20 years and over 20 billion dollars later spent to train the locals , and they folded like paper . The people there are fucked either way, but no one wants to be occupied .

 

U.S. Imperialists Suffer Humiliating Defeat in Afghanistan as Oppressive Taliban Regime Returns to Power

August 16, 2021 | revcom.us

 

As we go to press the pro-U.S. government and armed forces of Afghanistan have collapsed. These are forces that the U.S. armed, trained, bragged about, and spent 20 years and billions of dollars on, so that they could ensure a stable Afghanistan firmly under U.S. domination, without significant numbers of U.S. troops having to be there. The U.S. also had tens of thousands of its troops in Afghanistan, including as many as 100,000 at the peak, involved in both fighting and training.

But as soon as the U.S. (first under Trump, continuing under Biden) declared that it was pulling its own troops, contractors and mercenaries out, the Afghan forces began to crumble. And as the declared date of complete U.S. withdrawal (September 11) approached, the collapse accelerated in the face of an offensive by the much smaller—but fanatical and battle-hardened—army of the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban that the U.S. had driven out of power in 2001.

By Saturday, August 14, the Taliban had seized almost every major city in Afghanistan except the capital of Kabul—in many cases the Afghan army either melted away without a fight or switched sides. By Monday, Afghanistan's president Ghani had resigned and fled the country and Taliban forces had taken control of the presidential palace; the U.S. flag had been lowered from its huge embassy, and its thousands of employees finished burning documents and were helicoptered to Kabul airport for hurried evacuation. The Biden administration was scrambling to put 6,000 U.S. troops on the ground, primarily to ensure that U.S. military, diplomatic and civilian personnel could get out before the Taliban seized complete control of the city, including the airport.

The Humanitarian Crisis and the Nightmare of Taliban Rule

To be clear, the Taliban—extreme religious fundamentalists who ruled Afghanistan from the mid-1990s until being driven out by the U.S. and its allies in 2001—were and are a nightmare for the masses of people. And their victory is especially ominous for women—under the Taliban’s version of Islamic Shariah law women are treated as literal property of the men in their families, forced to wear oppressive head coverings (the burka) when they go out, and subjected to medieval punishments and even death for violations of these codes.

Moreover, the Taliban (like the U.S.¹) has a track record of exacting vengeance on anyone who has cooperated with their enemies, including not just high-level officials but low-level functionaries, soldiers, teachers and so on.

Because of all this, and because of the fighting, as Taliban control spread across Afghanistan, large numbers of people—(the UN estimates about 400,000)—have fled their homes, going west across the border into Iran,² east to Pakistan, or to the capital of Kabul. In all these conditions people are desperate, often without food or water—and this is happening in the midst of the COVID pandemic as well. Imagine living hungry and homeless, without sanitation or access to healthcare, among hundreds or thousands in the streets or in refugee camps as a deadly epidemic wraps its tentacles around one person after another!

The U.S.—NOT the “Good Guys”

So the situation right now is genuinely dire for the masses of people in Afghanistan. At the same time, the myth that the U.S. defeat is some great tragedy, that America is “the good guys” in this situation and that the government that it backed for 20 years was an inspiring experiment in democracy, is completely at odds with reality.

Take for instance the Afghan state and military: In the U.S. media and among political leaders, the rapid collapse of these armed forces is treated as both a mystery and a tragedy. It is neither. In reality it is a predictable reflection of the fact that this was a reactionary military fighting on behalf of foreign occupiers and the oppressive and corrupt government those occupiers had put in place. From the time the U.S. began preparing to invade Afghanistan in 2001, it forged alliances with an ugly array of warlords and regional despots who were “won over” to the U.S. by a combination of bribes, perceived opportunities to increase their power over the people of Afghanistan, and/or rivalries and feuds with the just-as-or-even-more reactionary Taliban forces.

So their loyalty was always up for grabs, and when it became clear the U.S. was leaving and that the Taliban would therefore win, most folded or went over to the Taliban. The soldiers in these armed forces were often unpaid, half-starved, and fighting for nothing more than a paycheck. They too were not about to throw their lives away in a losing battle to defend one oppressive regime against another.

Life During Wartime in Afghanistan

U.S. media have also tried to paint Afghan society under U.S. control as some kind of beacon of democracy and for the emancipation of women. This is a cruel joke. In spite of the trillions the U.S. keeps moaning about spending (most of which went to bombing and killing people, or was siphoned off by corrupt officials at every level), conditions for Afghan people were horrifically bad, even as compared to most other third world nations.

First, there was the toll of the war itself—at least 43,000 and perhaps as many as 220,000 civilians died by war-related causes. U.S. and Afghan military repeatedly carried out bombing attacks on wedding parties, funeral processions, schools and hospitals—just two weeks ago the Afghan Air Force bombed a private hospital in Helmand Province, killing two people and destroying the facility. Over 60,000 Afghan soldiers died in the war.

On top of this, in this already impoverished country, crops and villages were destroyed, and the economy distorted and disrupted. 1.3 million children under the age of five faced malnutrition. At least one in four Afghan children between the ages of 5 and 14 have to work to help their families survive. As of 2014, only 54 percent of children (male and female) went to school. Yet Human Rights Watch reported in 2017 that “only between 2 and 6 percent of overseas development assistance has gone to the education sector.” All this while vast sums went into the war machine, or into the pockets of the pro-U.S. elite.

Role of Minor Reforms in Sustaining an Oppressive Regime

Yes, it is true that in the major cities, particularly Kabul, with their larger middle class and educated populations, there was a certain degree of lessening of some of the oppressive strictures, relations and conditions facing the vast majority in the rural areas, the smaller cities and the urban slums. In Kabul bolder women could wear jeans rather than traditional Islamic dress, intellectuals and journalists could speak up to some degree (though there was still considerable risk of attack by either the government or the Taliban), there were elections to public office, including many women being elected.

But rather than being the beginning of a society-wide transformation, of uprooting oppression, poverty and exploitation, these were minimal concessions being made to a portion of the population in order to win their allegiance to a regime that served foreign imperialism and rested on a barbaric social order³. Those who mistakenly believed that something more and better was going on, and who really stepped out to fight for the rights of women, for example, are now painfully learning that the U.S. never gave a fuck about that, and they are being left high and dry to face Taliban retaliation as the U.S. ushers its people (and a few Afghans) out of the country.

Going Forward

The situation now is very fluid. As we say in our main editorial, “As the Taliban Take Over Afghanistan and America Is Driven Out in Defeat... WHERE DO THE INTERESTS OF HUMANITY LIE,” the humiliating defeat of the U.S. project to dominate Afghanistan and the whole region is a very good thing, but the victory of the Taliban is a bad thing. And so the immediate situation confronting our sisters and brothers in Afghanistan has grown even more dire. There is great fear among many in Kabul—one young Afghan woman journalist described the streets as largely deserted, especially of women and children, and she said that she herself had to desperately search for hijab (head covering) instead of her normal jeans for fear of what the Taliban might do.

People there will have to find the ways to fight against this—and bring forward another way. And people around the world will have to find the ways to support them. But if there is one thing that the 20-year U.S. “project” in Afghanistan should have taught everyone, it is that for humanity to find a way out of this mess means taking up the struggle and the science to overthrow all oppressive systems (however difficult that might appear) rather than taking the “easy” but doomed path of backing one oppressive order against another.

 

1. Many of the “dangerous terrorists” that the U.S. tortured and/or imprisoned after al-Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center turned out to be people who held very low-level jobs—like drivers—within the Taliban or al-Qaeda. And of course many of the U.S.'s prisoners had nothing to do with those organizations at all. [back]

2. Where there are reports that some have been shot and killed by Iranian border guards. [back]

3. The Intercept reports that much of the urban middle class “threw their weight behind the post-2001 order largely for pragmatic reasons: It gave them a reliable government, police, or army salary with which to build a home or raise a family.” [back]